Matt’s Week in Dork! (6/15/14-6/21/14)

    Looking at this week, it probably looks like I didn’t accomplish much, Dork Life or otherwise.  And that’s not far off.  But I was busy, in my way.  I had a moment of inspiration and started laying the groundwork for a book (don’t know if it’ll go anywhere), then had an epiphany about an old story I never finished, that recharged in my interest in it.  We’ll see if anything comes of it.  But it was a good feeling, if nothing else.

Dagon:  Why name this Dagon?  It’s an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, not Dagon.  They’re two different (though somewhat related) stories.  Anyway, the film has some good bits thrown in, but is mostly uninspired.  The Shadow Over Innsmouth is probably the most obvious Lovecraft story to adapt to the screen, yet this is the only time I know of that it’s been attempted.  And failed.  There are worse Lovecraft adaptations.  But thankfully, there are better, too.

The Machine:  Painfully middle of the road, this movie had all the parts it needed to be really good, but not the will.  Punches were pulled, not just in terms of its made-for-TV level of violence and sex, but in its fear of pushing the concepts into new or challenging directions.  Lots of cool stuff is introduced, but none is followed through with any depth.  With low budget film, there is little excuse for making the plot progression bland.  So, this one is a failure.

Trouble in Paradise:  Ernst Lubitsch knew comedy.  Cheeky, dryly witty, occasionally raunchy, and constantly charming, this film isn’t quite as much fun as Design for Living, but it’s close.  Miriam Hopkins and Herbert Marshal are absolutely adorable together.  The dialog is quick and surprising.  Very much a must see.  And it’s pre-Code, so its mind is fully in the gutter, and wonderfully so.  And stalwart goofball Edward Everett Horton makes an obligatory appearance, with his usual put-upon antics and double-takes.

The Tales of Hoffmann:  Did I just trip the proverbial balls?  Imagine that crazy-ass dream sequence from The Red Shoes was turned into a feature length opera/ballet.  Yeah.  If I believed in gods, this would be against their laws.  There are lots of beautiful (and no small number of terrifying) sequences.  But I think the whole thing is so divorced from sanity as to be difficult to sit through.

Wild Strawberries:  I don’t know if it’s weird for this film to have been made by a young man, or obvious.  I think there comes a time in many a man’s life, certainly in that of the writer, when they discover and are nearly overwhelmed with nostalgia.  Perhaps it’s the realization of mortality making memories and experiences more important?  I don’t know.  But I’ve been in a place where I could have made this film (if I were a talented filmmaker), so in spite of it being about an old man’s life, perhaps it is a young man’s film.  It’s Bergman, so I’m sure there have been Film Studies papers written on the subject, and critical discussions far more profound than anything I can muster.  What I can say is that I enjoyed the heck out of the movie.  Victor Sjostrom is a charming old fellow, and manages to play kindly, sad, resigned, yet full of wonder and joy, making a rounded and complicated character.  Ingrid Thulin as his daughter-in-law is captivating.  She’s like staring at the ocean, seeing ripples on the surface, but knowing there’s chaos just beneath.  The movie is packed with emotional moments, taking you from amusement to sadness, to joy and back.  It’s cute.  It’s touching.  It’s a darned fine film.  And it’s yet another reminder that while Bergman did a few ART! films, with dense symbolism and what have you, he also made a lot of movies that are just about life, and are as relatable and watchable as can be.

    Brad and I headed over to the Mosaic Center to watch The Rover at The Angelica.  That’s when we found out that NOTHING is open before 11AM there on a Saturday.  The whole area was packed with people, yet there were maybe like three shops open, and the only restaurant we found was a Panera Bread.  It reminded me of when my friend and I went in to DC a month or so back and for blocks couldn’t find a place that opened on Saturday.  There are people running around with money to burn, and nobody to take it.  Weird.  How do shops not open by 9AM?  10 at the outside?

The Rover:  This movie shoots you in the stomach and leaves you in the desert to die.  In the burning heat of the Australian Outback, ten years after civilization collapsed, some desperate men cross paths with the wrong man.  There isn’t a lot of plot.  There’s not a lot of talking or character development.  There is a grinding, crushing sense of desperation and doom.  This is a vision of society winding down, of the world drying up, and the people turning to dust.  The slow apocalypse.  The dying of the light.  Guy Pearce is absolutely terrifying in this film.  It’s nice to see him in something good, and allowed to do his thing.  It’s been a while.  I feel like this movie would be a good companion to Mad Max.  It feels like it’s set in that same dying civilization, the same world of the rules rolling back, of people turning into animals.  And co-Dork Brad’s feeling that it’s the spiritual sequel to The Proposition sounds about right, too.

    That’s pretty much it.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (5/4/14-5/10/14)

    On Sunday morning, a friend and I headed to the outskirts of DC, where we ate at Ragtime, a nice little neighborhood pub.  And then from there, we walked to Theodor Roosevelt Island, which is a park I like a lot, but boy has it fallen into disrepair.  While packed with visitors, and obviously a popular destination, the statue of Teddy is looking pretty ratty, the pools are all dry, and the wooden walkways are sinking, rotting, and starting to look dangerous.  Such a nice place, it’s a shame to see it falling apart.

    Sunday night was the latest meeting of the graphic novel club, where we discussed Asterios Polyp.  It got very mixed reviews, with some strong negative feelings and some fairly positive, while many people seemed to fall closer to the middle.  I think everyone liked the interesting art and design of the book, even if folks weren’t all on board for the story.

Quai Des Orfevres:  Paris in the 40s is the setting of this odd, and oddly paced film about troubled lovers, friends, theater, murder, and petty crime.  It is much more of a character study than a mystery, with a surprising number of very interesting and fleshed out characters.  The combative couple, the focal point of the film, are less interesting than their blonde friend, or the hang-dog ex-Legion cop (Louis Jouvet).  In many ways, it feels like a classic Film Noir, yet in others it’s uniquely French.  As I write this, having finished watching the film ten or fifteen minutes ago, I can’t say for sure that it’s a good or a great film.  But it’s interesting and unusual enough, with very well crafted characters.  I would recommend watching it, but my feelings are oddly mixed.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty:  I have a feeling that this is a movie one could very, very easily dismiss.  It is, admittedly, saccharine and manipulative.  It’s ‘aw, gee shucks’ kind of mindset is way the crap out of step with modern cinema.  But darn it.  I found myself enjoying the heck out of the film.  It’s absolutely beautiful, and other than Casino Royale, is probably the best film in recent memory that makes travel seem totally awesome.  There’s nothing very complex.  You know what the film is trying to say from nearly the opening shot.  There are no surprises.  But it worked.  Is it amazing?  No.  Is it going to stick with me?  Probably not.  But I really, really liked watching it while it was on.  Like cotton candy for your eyes and brain.

    I read a couple more comics, Silver Surfer #1, Velvet #1 and the Free Comic Book Day issue of Rocket Raccoon.  Silver Surfer is…well, it’s just not what I want.  Like the FF comic, and some others Marvel is putting out, it’s taking what could be a cool science fiction title and turning it in to Wacky Adventure Time!, which isn’t something I want to read.  At least, not about a character like Silver Surfer, who I feel could be amazing, but like Wonder Woman, is rarely handled well.  Speaking of Wacky Adventure Time!, there’s the Rocket Raccoon comic.  OK, fine.  Whatever.  I like what Guardians of the Galaxy I’ve read (that Legacy trade from a few years back).  But I tried to read Rocket’s original comic and it was flippin’ terrible.  So, it’s not like there’s something for them to ruin here.  And it’s OK.  But again, it’s not something I want to read.  It’s one thing to be humorous.  It’s another to be a joke.  Also in this comic is a Spider Man short, Space Oddities.  It’s silly and not my cup of tea.  The diamond in this rough was Velvet.  From Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting (who did the run of Captain America that made me give a crap about that character), this Cold War story feels like what Winter Soldier would have been like if it wasn’t saddled with the Marvel name.  It’s James Bond at its darkest.  What I like about Brubaker’s female lead (like his female lead in Fatale) is that she doesn’t just deliver snarky, ‘oh so clever’ dialog (a la Joss Whedon characters).  I’m very interested in where this series might go.  It’s the strongest first issue I’ve read in quite some time.

The Night Porter:  This is, unfortunately, the movie I expected it to be.  It has that very specific brand of 70s Euro-sleaze dripping all over an attempted ART! film, with a heavy dose of wannabe shock-factor.  But like so many movies made to be shocking, times change, we movie on, and the shock wears off.  What we’re left with are some very good performances from the leads and a potentially interesting idea that is lost in the shuffle of “stick poking a hornets’ nest” filmmaking.  The idea of two people who were on opposite sides of something as horrible as the Holocaust, meeting by chance many years later, has the potential for some very interesting conflict, especially when a dangerous sort of sexual relationship had existed between the two.  However, this film doesn’t manage to make it interesting, or explore it in any satisfying way.  This has more of Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler (aka Last Orgy of the Third Reich) than something like Five Minutes of Heaven or In the Land of Blood and Honey.  The scene, near the beginning, where Dirk Bogarde sees Charlotte Rampling is fantastic, and makes you think you’re going to watch a better film.  You don’t.

Attack the Block:  “Trust.”  I love this Goonies meets Critters meets Harry Brown bit of wacky sci-fi horror from South London.  A good cast of characters, including a lot of good kid/teen actors.  Good music, and very simple, but coolly iconic creature design.  Unlike all too many contemporary horror films, it features characters I like and I grow to care about.  Young John Carpenter would be proud.

Godzilla:  “Let them fight.”  It took an awful long time, but they finally got it right.  The director of Monsters, Gareth Edwards, took on Kaiju a few years ago, with a limited budget and low star-power, and made one of the better horror films of recent memory.  Now, with Hollywood blockbuster bucks behind him, he managed to maintain the essence of the classic Godzilla films, while ramping up the effects and thrills.  Putting Godzilla in his proper place, as an avatar of the Earth, a force of nature that becomes active when things get too far out of balance, made me very happy.  For those expecting some kind of silly action movie, you’re likely to be disappointed.  This isn’t Transformers.  It’s not The Avengers.  It’s Godzilla.  It’s a slow build, like Alien or Jaws, taking its time to explore the characters and build dread.  Even when stuff starts getting crazy, Godzilla is nowhere to be seen.  This is actually in keeping with classic Godzilla films.  He would often not show up until the final act, where he would drop his reptile hammer on whatever monsters or aliens or alien monsters might be messing with good ‘ol Planet Earth.  My one complaint would be Aaron Taylor-Johnson.  As much as I liked him in Kick-Ass, he’s since proved to be a pretty boring drone of an actor.  Throughout the film, he looks at things with a bewildered expression, and had little function other than to be a set of eyes for us to see the madness through.  I’d have preferred the film to focus more on Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins, or even Elizabeth Olsen.  Good Godzilla films are made, in many ways, by a cast of interesting human characters.  The humans in this one aren’t amazing, but they’re good enough to get the job done.  Here’s hoping the film does good numbers and gets a follow-up.  King Ghidorah!  Gigan!  Mothra!  Come on.  It’s got to happen.

Il Pianeta Errante (War Between the Planets):  “Prepare to fix.”  I like the production design and model work in this film.  Unfortunately, it’s super, super boring.  Really darned boring.  Oh, my gosh.  Boring.  It keeps going.  Potentially interesting scenarios become exercises in tedium.

Creation of the Humanoids:  There’s some very cool stuff in this one.  Unfortunately, the acting is super stiff.  I like the exploration of ethics, in that way science fiction used to do more often.  And not just anti-technology, like you typically find in contemporary films.  Robots and humans trying to get along in the world after WWIII has decimated the planet.  The sets and such are good.  With a slightly better script and much better acting, this could have been a secret classic.  As it is, it’s a good watch, and one I’m glad I’ve found.  But it’s not as good as it could have been.

Godzilla 2000:  The second re-launch of the Godzilla film franchise, this film tries to get on the CGI train, while also trying to be more cinematic than the Heisei era of the 80s and 90s.  Some of the ideas are cool, and the action is certainly shot better.  It also doesn’t look as cheap as the Heisei films.  But it still doesn’t have the charm of the Showa era.  Some of the fun seems to be missing.  The moral of this story?  Don’t let Godzilla go off in your mouth.

Baba Yaga:  Much more pleasant a viewing than I was expecting, this 70s Euro-Sleaze has plenty of the expected bare breasts and awkward dubbing.  But it didn’t feature the expected endurance test of violence directed toward woman you tend to get in Italian cinema.  I like the pacing and the cinematography quite a bit.  There’s a kind of object fetish, lingering shots on various old things (books, radios, knickknacks of all kinds), and a heavy dose of atmosphere that reminds me of some of what I love in Jean Rollin films (though there’s not nearly Rollin levels of nudity).  The film is based on a comic I used to occasionally see bits from in Heavy Metal way back when.  My memory of that comic was that it had a dreamy quality, and this film too has that.  Is it great?  No.  But it’s better than the average 70s Italian film.

The Magic Flute:  There’s nothing wrong with this movie.  Ingmar Bergman’s direction is typically solid, the performances are good, the style is good, and the music is good.  I simply never got into it.  Mozart is a composer I can listen to, but seldom am moved by; and this adaptation of his work sort of sums up my relationship with him.  All the pieces are there, but I’m left cold.

Godzilla VS. King Ghidorah:  This film represents what the Heisei era is.  The plot is nearly unintelligible, the effects are a mixed bag, the human characters aren’t especially interesting, and the acting is kinda awful (with a few exceptions).  And the whole thing looks like it was shot for television.  I like some of the bits, particularly the connections to WWII.  But the terrible time travel (seriously, some of the worst time travel writing I’ve ever come across) and the rejiggering of Ghidorah’s origin…I can’t get behind that.  A lot of cool(ish) creature designs come out of the Heisei films, but not a lot of good Godzilla storytelling.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome:  While often dismissed and frequently dissed, I love this film.  It features more of the Odysseus-type journey than The Road Warrior (which is, absolutely, a much better film).  I love the way the world has fallen and is trying to rebuild itself in a new image.  I love the Lord of the Flies oasis Max discovers.  I love the look and feel, and the wild music.  I’m guessing I first saw this when I was about 10, and it had a profound effect on me and particularly on my early writing efforts.  Watching it again for the first time in quite a while, I still love it.  But, I have to admit, the third act is weak.  Max and the kids return to Bartertown, and they recreate the final action climax from The Road Warrior.  That could have been better.  Perhaps Max helping the children in a siege of their village.  Perhaps an exodus away from Bartertown.  Maybe some other element.  I don’t know.  But while I still enjoy it, that last fifteen minutes or so are not as good as they could and should have been.

    Good times had by all.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (4/27/14-5/3/14)

    Life has been pretty swell for this Dork. 

Transcendence:  Oh, man.  Where to begin.  There was so much potential for telling a good story here.  All missed.  I’ll just start with the biggest problem the movie has.  It’s really, really, really boring.  I mean, BORING.  No, it didn’t need fistfights, or explosions, or more CGI.  It just needed characters one could care about, and a plot that was at all engaging.  Unfortunately, this film is populated by idiot scientists; the kind that are all too common in film, and frustratingly, almost the rule in science fiction.  Even the Luddite terrorists don’t make much sense.  Nobody seems willing to act, to accomplish anything.  There seems to be little growth in character, simply an alteration in behavior as demanded by the advancement of the carbon-copy plot.  And what about those actors.  Depp is fine, I guess.  Frankly, he seemed to be phoning it in.  Rebecca Hall is kind of annoying, but no more so than usual.  Kate Mara…Oh, man.  Kate Mara.  Every danged time she opens her mouth, she spews forth grown inducing dialog and the worst way.  She speaks like a child actor, wooden and stupid.  It’s awful.  Worse still, about 20 minutes into the movie, her character stops being important…but that’s when she becomes a major character…even though she does NOTHING.  So crappy.  Sadly, I’m with everyone else on this one.  This movie is crap.  Hire writers.  Do some research.  Make better films.  This sort of thing is, really, inexcusable.

I need to make better choices.

Welcome to the Jungle:  I didn’t have high hopes for this film, and it isn’t good.  But, Jean Claude Van Damme is extremely funny and by far the best part of the movie.  Otherwise, it’s a bunch of tired sitcom level jokes with the raunchiness of straight to video.  The characters are all stock, mostly played by actors who play essentially the same characters on crappy TV shows.  Honestly, when JCVD is off screen, which is far too often, it drags.  Worth checking out if you don’t have to expend any effort, but pretty much exclusively for the Belgian wonder.

Small Apartments:  This is one of those very odd, small comedies that gets lots of weird actors together in one place and has a lot of fun.  I don’t know that it’s great, but it’s sure different.  And it’s got a lot of bits I really liked, and performances I really liked.  For crying out loud, Johnny Knoxville was good.  What’s that about?  Definitely one to check out if you’re in the mood for something a little bit out there, kind of dark, kind of funny, and certainly not like everything else.

The man loves his Moxie.

    Watched a bunch more of Mad Men’s second season.  It’s a darned fine show.  The awful behavior is fascinating.  And Don Draper.  He’s just so darned cool.

    On Wednesday night, we headed out to The Alamo for a Spaghetti Western and spaghetti dinner (though I was not up to the spaghetti that night).  Here’s hoping we’ll be seeing a lot more of these events there (and from the schedule, it looks like we will).

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:  “More feeling.”  A sprawling journey through Hell for three men looking for some gold.  To say this movie takes its time would be like saying deep space is a bit chilly.  Shots and whole scenes that are held for extremely long times and a meandering story may make it a challenge for some viewers.  But I love their weird Odyssey.  And when they start to stumble upon the soulless, listless combatants of the Civil War, the obviously not American setting gives it a haunting, displaced feel that really does seem like some horrible limbo or hell.  It’s almost certainly too long, the dubbing is kind of wonderfully bad, and many bits can be quite jarring.  But it’s a mad kind of wonderful.  Eastwood, Wallach, and Van Cleef are all great.  And that whole ending…nice.  This is top notch Western/Fantasy.

Mothra Vs. Godzilla:  I think this is the beginning of the wonder and madness the Godzilla films became known for.  It’s super weird, and awesome.  The twin fairies, a giant peace-loving moth, money hungry developers, and plucky reporters.  It’s not my favorite of the series, but it’s chronologically the first one I really love.

    Brad and I went on a mad comic book shop crawl on Saturday (Free Comic Book Day).  Third Eye Comics out in MD, Phoenix (aka Laughing Ogre) out in Ashburn, Big Planet in Vienna, Phoenix again in Fairfax, and The Comic Shop at the Fair Oaks Mall.  In keeping with the spirit of the day (supporting local comic shops), I made sure to find something to buy in each place.  I don’t know if it was timing, or what, but one frustration was that all the shops we hit seemed to have the same handful of titles, in spite of there being nearly 60 different free comics produced.  The awesome thing was that every shop we went to seemed full of people (really, really full in some cases), and people were buying stuff.  Awesome.  After all that madness, Brad and I hooked up with Lisa and headed out to The Alamo again for one of their Late Night shows.

Mad Max:  “They say people don’t believe in heroes anymore.”  The world is going to hell, with only Max and a few of his Bronze brothers keeping civilization's light alive.  I love this glimpse into an ugly, entropic future where civilization wasn’t destroyed by some catastrophic event; it simply ran out of juice.  It’s an ugly, uncomfortable films, with jarring music and nasty characters.  It doesn’t have an easy climax, or a happy ending.  It’s brutal and mean.  It features one of the all time best film endings.

    Other than my list of anticipated Summer films (here), that’s it for this week.  I’m going to try to spend Sunday on my couch, reading comics and watching movies.  Let’s see how that works out.

-Matt

New Release Tuesday!!! - Better Late Than Never Edition (6/4/13)

I know I'm late on this one, but I didn't want to let this week slip by since it's packed with so many wonderful films to consume.  You've got another so-so Die Hard as well as another zom rom com (who would have ever thought of another one of those sub, sub-genres coming around after Shaun of the Dead?), but the real treats of the week extend from that glorious decade of the 1970s.  And they're not the typical classics most film freaks have seen.  Let's start with the...

MUST BUY DVD OF THE WEEK!

Electra Glide in Blue:  One of the best beat cop movies out there.  Robert Blake (let's ignore his murderous personal life) is a teeny tiny highway patrolman navigating the mundane crimes of the Arizona interstate.  His dreams of Homicide Detection are teased when he discovers the corpse of an anonymous hermit.  It's a mean little film with just as much disillusionment as Dirty Harry, but not as widely regarded as that Hollywood endeavor.  Electra Glide in Blue is a slower film; it takes its time to rip your heart out, but when it gets there you'll feel a chunk of your soul missing.  Sound like a good time out at the movies?  Maybe not, but it's a fantastic experience.

BUY!

A Good Day To Die Hard:  Not the return to Hard R glory I wanted, but what do you expect for the fifth film in a franchise?  Um, how 'bout Fast Five!  Bruce Willis travels to Mother Russia to retrieve his son from a whole heap of Cold War trouble.  Jai Courtney is actually pretty fantastic as the McClane offspring, and his relationship with Willis is far more entertaining than expected.  My real problem with the film are the lackluster action set pieces.  Other than an impossibly long car chase, there is very little to remember about this example of diminishing return.  And is John McClane really John McClane when he's sporting a chrome dome?  Not to me he isn't.

Warm Bodies:  Much better than it has any right to be, the film pretty much looses me as it crawls towards its climax.  But where can this sub-genre go once you've explored every horrific aspect?  It was bound to get the Twilight treatment and it succeeds thanks to the presence of "real" actors (you know, people than can emote) and a recognizable sense of loneliness.  Rob Corddry steals the show as Holt's zombie buddy and the film certainly could have benefitted with more of his zombie banter.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome:  The whole trilogy hit blu ray this week, but since I already have the first two the only one I'm really interested in acquiring is this flawed, but ambitious conclusion.  It's been at least a decade since I've seen this movie, and the plot details have pretty much faded.  I certainly remember Tina Turner and the revolting Master Blaster.  I remember that tribe of children from the poster.  And I remember the disappointment that Mad Max is just not as hardcore as he was in The Road Warrior.  But it's time for a revisit.

The Shadow:  Speaking of disappointments...The Shadow came out amongst a flurry of pulp hero adaptations (Dick Tracy, The Phantom, The Rocketeer) and it was easily the weakest of the bunch.  Alec Baldwin cuts a pretty fine Lamont Cranston, but his masked avenger could use a little work and definitely a better nose job.  PG doesn't work for the film either.  I'm not looking for an R Rated bloodbath, but The Shadow is a killer and he should act as such.  Think Batman filtered through gangster morality.   However, the real exciting thing about this blu ray release is the widescreen.  Every few years a new DVD would come out, but it would always be truncated into Full Screen.  Now we can see every inch of this mediocre adventure, and I'm genuinely excited.  Even a poor adaptation is worthy of some enthusiasm.

Earthquake:  My absolute favorite Disaster Film.  Growing up in San Diego, California I was always terrified the Earth would open up and swallow my home.  I only lived through a few minor quakes but they were enough to permanently scar my child brain.  Charlton Heston leads a cast of time-gone-by actors as well as a few bright, up & comers.  George Kennedy is the bee's knees as the tough guy cop brought to an emotional breakdown by mother nature.  Richard Roundtree is a meastro of the dirt bike, coming to the rescue of helpless kiddies everywhere.  But the real stars are the matte paintings and the crumbling Universal sets.  Brutal, heartbreaking devastation and only in a way that 70s Hollywood could do.  Roland Emmerich only wishes he could match this horror.

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry/Race With The Devil:  Shout Factory put out this brilliant double in standard def a few years back, but now we can take in all the 70s sleazy grime in beautiful 1080p.  Mary & Larry is fun enough, however, the real draw is the satanic road rage of Race With The Devil.  Starring Peter Fonda & Warren Oates as a couple of dirt bike champions (such a popular profession in the 70s), the two cool cats & their wives stumble upon a human sacrifice while dragging their winnebago across America.  RG Armstrong guest stars as a sheriff with a touch of the goat.  Directed by Jack Starrett after he ruled the exploitation world with Jim Brown's Slaughter, but before he co-starred in First Blood as the asshole cop Rambo rocked out of the helicopter.  Race With The Devil will mark an excellent addition to your Rosemary's Baby, Devil's Rain, Ninth Gate dvd shelf.

RENT!

Scum:  Starring an impossibly young Ray Winstone, Scum is a flick I've always wanted to see but have just never gotten around to.  Time to change that.  Director Alan Clarke originally crafted this story as a BBC play but it was banned before it ever aired.  When the regime changed they reshot the story with Ray Winstone in the lead and brutalized British society.  Apparently.  I can't tell you if it's great or not.  But I love Winstone.  And I love angry films.

--Brad